Kristin Lavransdatter Page 21

  Kristin was allowed to accompany the woman. She thought it unlike her uncle to want to give her a costly gift, and peculiar that he would send a stranger to get her.

  At first the woman said little, replying only briefly to Kristin’s questions, but when they had walked all the way into town, she suddenly said, “I don’t want to fool you, lovely child that you are. I’m going to tell you how things truly stand so you can decide for yourself. It wasn’t your uncle who sent me, but a man—maybe you can guess his name, and if you can’t, then you shouldn’t come with me. I have no husband, and I have to make a living for myself and mine by keeping an inn and serving ale. So I can’t be too afraid of either sin or servants—but I will not let my house be used for purposes of deceiving you within my walls.”

  Kristin stopped, her face flushed. She felt strangely hurt and ashamed on Erlend’s behalf.

  The woman said, “I will accompany you back to the convent, Kristin, but you must give me something for my trouble. The knight promised me a large reward, but I was also beautiful once, and I too was deceived. And then you can remember me in your prayers tonight. They call me Brynhild Fluga.”

  Kristin took a ring from her finger and gave it to the woman.

  “That was kind of you, Brynhild, but if the man is my kinsman Erlend Nikulaussøn, then I have nothing to fear. He wants me to reconcile him with my uncle. You will not be blamed—but thank you for warning me.”

  Brynhild Fluga turned away to hide her smile.

  She led Kristin through the alleys behind Clement’s Church and north toward the river. A few small, isolated farms were situated on the bank. They walked between several fences, and there came Erlend to meet them. He glanced around and then took off his cape and wrapped it around Kristin, pulling the hood forward over her face.

  “What do you think of this ruse?” he asked quickly, in a low voice. “Do you think I’ve done wrong? But I had to talk to you.”

  “It won’t do much good for us to think about what’s right and what’s wrong,” said Kristin.

  “Don’t talk like that,” implored Erlend. “I take the blame. Kristin, I’ve longed for you every day and every night,” he whispered close to her ear.

  A shudder passed through her as she briefly met his glance. She felt guilty because she had been thinking about something besides her love for him when he looked at her in that way.

  Brynhild Fluga had gone on ahead. When they reached the inn, Erlend asked Kristin, “Do you want to go into the main room, or should we talk upstairs in the loft?”

  “As you please,” replied Kristin.

  “It’s cold up there,” said Erlend softly. “We’ll have to get into the bed.” Kristin merely nodded.

  The instant he had closed the door behind them, she was in his arms. He bent her this way and that like a wand, blinding her and smothering her with kisses, as he impatiently tore both cloaks off her and tossed them to the floor. Then he lifted the girl in the pale convent dress in his arms, pressing her to his shoulder, and carried her over to the bed. Frightened by his roughness and by her own sudden desire for this man, she put her arms around him and buried her face in his neck.

  It was so cold in the loft that they could see their own breath like a cloud of smoke in front of the little candle standing on the table. But there were plenty of blankets and furs on the bed, covered by a great bearskin, which they pulled all the way up over their faces.

  She didn’t know how long she had lain like that in his arms when Erlend said, “Now we must talk about those things that have to be discussed, my Kristin. I don’t dare keep you here long.”

  “I’ll stay here the whole night if you want me to,” whispered Kristin.

  Erlend pressed his cheek to hers.

  “Then I would not be much of a friend to you. Things are bad enough already, but I won’t have people gossiping about you because of me.”

  Kristin didn’t reply, but she felt a twinge of pain. She didn’t understand how he could say such a thing, since he was the one who had brought her here to Brynhild Fluga’s house. She didn’t know how she knew it, but she realized that this was not a good place. And he had expected that everything would proceed just as it did, for he had a cup of mead standing inside the bed drapes.

  “I’ve been thinking,” continued Erlend, “that if there’s no other alternative, then I’ll have to take you away by force, to Sweden. Duchess Ingebjørg received me kindly this autumn and spoke of the kinship between us. But now I’m paying for my sins—I’ve fled the country before, you know—and I don’t want you to be mentioned as that other one’s equal.”

  “Take me home to Husaby with you,” said Kristin quietly. “I can’t bear to be separated from you and to live with the maidens in the convent. Surely both your kinsmen and mine will be reasonable enough that they’ll allow us to be together and become reconciled with them.”

  Erlend hugged her tight and moaned, “I can’t take you to Husaby, Kristin.”

  “Why can’t you?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Eline came back this fall,” he said after a moment. “I can’t make her leave the farm,” he continued angrily, “not unless I carry her by force out to the sleigh and drive her away myself. And I don’t think I could do that—she brought both of our children home with her.”

  Kristin felt as if she were sinking deeper and deeper. In a voice that was brittle with fear she said, “I thought you had parted from her.”

  “I thought so too,” replied Erlend curtly. “But she apparently heard in Østerdal, where she was living, that I was thinking of marriage. You saw the man I was with at the Christmas banquet—that was my foster father, Baard Petersøn of Hestnaes. I went to him when I returned from Sweden; I visited my kinsman, Heming Alvsøn, in Saltvik too. I told them that I wanted to get married now and asked them to help me. That must be what Eline heard.

  “I told her to demand whatever she wanted for herself and the children. But they don’t expect Sigurd, her husband, to survive the winter, and then no one can prevent us from living together.

  “I slept in the stables with Haftor and Ulv, and Eline slept in the house in my bed. I think my men had a good laugh behind my back.”

  Kristin couldn’t say a word.

  After a moment Erlend went on, “You know, on the day when our betrothal is formally celebrated, she’ll have to realize that it will do her no good—that she has no power over me any longer.

  “But it will be bad for the children. I hadn’t seen them in a year—they’re good-looking children—and there’s little I can do to secure their situation. It wouldn’t have helped them much even if I had been able to marry their mother.”

  Tears began to slide down Kristin’s cheeks.

  Then Erlend said, “Did you hear what I said? That I have spoken to my kinsmen? And they were pleased that I want to marry. Then I told them that it was you I wanted and no one else.”

  “And weren’t they pleased about that?” asked Kristin at last, timidly.

  “Don’t you see,” said Erlend gloomily, “that there was only one thing they could say? They cannot and they will not ride with me to speak with your father until this agreement between you and Simon Andressøn has been dissolved. It hasn’t made things any easier for us, Kristin, that you have celebrated Christmas with the Dyfrin people.”

  Kristin broke down completely and began to sob quietly. She had no doubt felt that there was something unwise and ignoble about her love, and now she realized that the blame was hers.

  She shivered with cold as she got out of bed a short time later and Erlend wrapped both cloaks around her. It was now completely dark outside, and Erlend accompanied her to Clement’s churchyard; then Brynhild escorted her the rest of the way to Nonneseter.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE FOLLOWING WEEK Brynhild Fluga came with word that the cloak was now finished, and Kristin went with her and was with Erlend in the loft room as before.

  When they parted he gave her a cloak, “so you have
something to show at the convent,” he said. It was made of blue velvet interwoven with red silk, and Erlend asked her whether she noticed that they were the same colors as the dress she had worn on that day in the forest. Kristin was surprised that she could be so happy over what he said; she felt as if he had never given her greater joy than with those words.

  But now they could no longer use this excuse to meet, and it was not easy to think of something else. Erlend went to vespers at the convent church, and several times after the service Kristin went on an errand up to the corrodians’ farms; they stole a few words with each other up along the fences in the dark of the winter evening.

  Then Kristin thought of asking Sister Potentia for permission to visit several palsied old women, charity cases of the convent, who lived in a house out in a field some distance away. Behind the house was a shed where the women kept a cow. Kristin offered to tend to the animal for them when she visited, and then she would let Erlend come in while she worked.

  She noticed with some surprise that in spite of Erlend’s joy at being with her, a tiny scrap of bitterness had settled in his mind that she had been able to think up this excuse.

  “It was not to your best advantage that you became acquainted with me,” he said one evening. “Now you’ve learned to use these kinds of secret ruses.”

  “You should not be blaming me for that,” replied Kristin de jectedly.

  “It’s not you that I blame,” said Erlend at once, embarrassed.

  “I never thought,” she went on, “that it would be so easy for me to lie. But what must be done can be done.”

  “That’s not always true,” said Erlend in the same voice as before. “Do you remember this past winter, when you couldn’t tell your betrothed that you wouldn’t have him?”

  Kristin didn’t reply, but merely stroked his face.

  She never felt so strongly how much she loved Erlend as when he said such things that made her feel dejected or surprised. And she was glad that she could take the blame for everything that was disgraceful or ignoble about their love. If she had had the courage to speak to Simon as she should have, then they could have progressed a long way in settling these matters. Erlend had done all that he could when he had spoken of marriage to his kinsmen. This is what she told herself whenever the days at the convent grew long and dreary. Erlend had wanted to make everything right and proper. With tender little smiles she would think about him as he looked whenever he described their wedding. She would ride to the church dressed in silk and velvet, and she would be led to the bridal bed with the tall golden crown on her hair, which would be spread out over her shoulders—her lovely, beautiful hair, he said, running her braids through his fingers.

  “But for you it won’t be the same as if you had never possessed me,” Kristin once said thoughtfully when he had spoken of such things.

  Then he had pulled her ardently to him.

  “Don’t you think I can remember the first time I celebrated Christmas, or the first time I saw the mountainsides turn green back home after winter? Oh, of course I’ll remember the first time I had you, and every time after that. But to possess you, that’s like perpetually celebrating Christmas or hunting birds on the green slopes.”

  Joyfully she crept closer in his arms.

  Not that she for a moment believed that things would go as Erlend so confidently expected. Kristin thought that a judgment day was sure to befall them before long. It was impossible for things to continue to go so well. But she was not particularly afraid. She was much more frightened that Erlend might have to travel north before the matter could be settled, and she would have to stay behind, separated from him. He was over at the fortress on Akersnes right now; Munan Baardsøn was there while the Royal Treasurer was in Tunsberg, where the king lay deathly ill. But one day Erlend would no doubt have to return home to see to his property. She refused to admit that this frightened her because he would be going home to Husaby where his mistress was waiting for him. But she was less afraid of being caught in sin with Erlend than of standing up alone and telling Simon, and her father as well, what was in her heart.

  And so she almost wished that some punishment would befall her, and soon. For now she had no thoughts for anything but Erlend. She longed for him in the daytime and she dreamed of him at night. She felt no repentance, but she consoled herself with the thought that the day would come when she would have to pay dearly for everything they had taken in secret. And during those brief evening hours when she could be together with Erlend in the poor women’s cowshed, she would throw herself into his arms so ardently, as if she had paid with her soul to be his.

  But time passed, and it looked as if Erlend was to have the good fortune that he was counting on. Kristin noticed that no one at the convent ever suspected her, although Ingebjørg had discovered that she met with Erlend. But Kristin could see that the other girl never thought it was anything more than a little amusement she was allowing herself. That a betrothed maiden of good family would dare to break the agreement that her kinsmen had made was something that would never occur to Ingebjørg. And for a moment fear raced through Kristin once more; perhaps this was something completely unheard of, this situation she had landed in. And then she wished again that she would be found out, so that it could be brought to an end.

  Easter arrived. Kristin couldn’t understand what had happened to the winter; each day that she had not seen Erlend had been as long as a dismal year, and the long gloomy days had become linked together into endless weeks. But now it was spring and Easter, and it seemed to her as if they had just celebrated Christmas. She asked Erlend not to seek her out during the holidays; and it seemed to Kristin that he acquiesced to all her wishes. It was just as much her fault as his that they had sinned against the strictures of Lent. But she wanted them to observe the Easter holiday—even though it hurt not to see him. He might have to leave quite soon; he hadn’t said anything about it, but she knew that the king was now dying, and she thought that this might cause some change in Erlend’s position.

  This was how matters stood for Kristin, when, a few days after Easter, she was summoned down to the parlatory to speak with her betrothed.

  As soon as Simon came toward her and put out his hand, she realized that something was wrong. His face was not the same as usual; his small gray eyes weren’t laughing, and they were untouched by his smile. Kristin couldn’t help noticing that it suited him to be a little less jovial. And he looked quite handsome in the traveling clothes he wore: a long, blue, tight-fitting outer garment that men called a cote-hardie, and a brown shoulder-cape with a hood, which he had thrown back. His light brown hair was quite curly from the raw, damp air.

  They sat and talked for a while. Simon had been at Formo during Lent, and he was over at Jørundgaard almost daily. They were all well there. Ulvhild was as healthy as anyone could expect. Ramborg was home now; she was charming and lively.

  “The time is almost over, the year that you were supposed to spend here at Nonneseter,” said Simon. “They’re probably preparing everything for our betrothal feast at your home.”

  Kristin didn’t reply as Simon continued.

  “I told Lavrans that I would ride to Oslo to speak with you about it.”

  Kristin looked down and said quietly, “Things are such, Simon, that I would prefer to speak with you in private about this matter.”

  “I too have felt that this would be necessary,” replied Simon Andressøn. “I was going to ask that you obtain Fru Groa’s permission for us to walk in the garden together.”

  Kristin stood up abruptly, and slipped soundlessly out of the room. A short time later she returned, accompanied by one of the nuns with a key.

  A door from the parlatory opened onto the herb garden, which lay beyond the buildings on the west side of the convent. The nun unlocked the door, and they stepped out into a fog so dense that they could see only a few steps in front of them amidst the trees. The closest trunks were black as coal; beads of moisture clung to every
branch and twig. Small patches of new snow were melting on the wet soil, but beneath the bushes tiny white and yellow lilies had already sprouted flowers, and it smelled fresh and cool from the violet-grass.

  Simon led her to the nearest bench. He sat down, leaning forward slightly with his elbows propped on his knees. Then he looked up at her with an odd little smile.

  “I almost think I know what you want to tell me,” he said. “There’s another man that you like better than me?”

  “That is true,” replied Kristin softly.

  “I think I know his name too,” said Simon, his voice more harsh. “Is it Erlend Nikulaussøn of Husaby?”

  After a moment Kristin said in a low voice, “So this has come to your attention?”

  Simon hesitated before he answered.

  “Surely you can’t think me so stupid that I wouldn’t notice anything when we were together at Christmastime? I couldn’t say anything then, because my father and mother were present. But this is the reason that I wanted to come here alone this time. I don’t know whether it’s wise of me to speak of this matter, but I thought that we ought to talk of such things before we are joined in marriage.

  “But as it happened, when I arrived here yesterday, I met my insman, Master Øistein. And he spoke of you. He said that he saw you walking across Clement’s churchyard one evening, and that you were with a woman they call Brynhild Fluga. I swore a sacred oath that he must have been mistaken. And if you tell me that it’s untrue, I will take you at your word.”

  “The priest was right,” replied Kristin stubbornly. “You forswore yourself, Simon.”

  He sat in silence for a moment before he spoke again.

  “Do you know who this Brynhild Fluga is, Kristin?” When she shook her head, he said, “Munan Baardsøn set her up in a house here in town after he was married—she sells wine illegally and other such things.”